Nur Shkembi
Curator & Writer
Nur Shkembi is an award-winning Melbourne (Naarm) based curator, writer and art historian specialising in Islamic art history (global and contemporary art), Australian art history, and postcolonial theory. Nur has produced and curated over 150 events, exhibitions and community engagement projects and was part of the core team which established the Islamic Museum of Australia, serving as the museum’s inaugural Art Director, Exhibitions Manager and foundation Curator. Much of her interest has been in the development of community awareness in relation to the arts with a focus on the presence of Australian Muslim artists in the cultural landscape. As a museum curator, Nur brought together artefacts, traditional art and contemporary art as a means for collective storytelling, subverting stereotypes and as a provision for the individual narrative. Nur has served on numerous boards and committees including the Museums, Cultural Heritage and Cultural Development Advisory committee and Organisation Investment Program; VicArts Visual Arts Advisory panel; Chair of Theatre Funding and was appointed by the Department of Premiere and Cabinet as a Commissioner for the Creative State Commissions. She also serves as a peer assessor for Creative Victoria and Creative Australia and as a Board Member of un Projects. Nur has written for academic texts and journals, exhibition catalogues and is a published author, with her debut novel Rookie distributed nationwide for the Australian high school curriculum by Cengage. Her writing is also featured in the National Gallery of Victoria’s Gallery magazine, un Magazine, Artist Profile, Crikey and ReOrient. Nur engages her independent curatorial practice nationally, recent exhibitions include: Waqt al Tagheer (ACE Open) Khalas! (UNSW Galleries), The Inner Apartment (Nishi Gallery and National Museum of Australia), We Are All Affected (Fairfield City Museum and Peacock Gallery), SOUL fury at the Bendigo Art Gallery, and Destiny Disrupted (Granville Arts Centre, Sydney and Griffith University Art Museum), and DOMINION, currently showing at the University of Melbourne. Nur is a founding member of eleven; a collective of contemporary Muslim Australian artists, curators and writers.
Nur holds a Masters from the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA & MCM) and recently completed her PhD (Doctor of Philosophy – Art) in the Department of Art History at the University of Melbourne. She is a Lecturer and Academic Teacher for the Masters of Art Curatorship course, University of Melbourne, and Lecturer in the Masters of Arts Management program at RMIT University. Professional Memberships: International Association of Art Critics (AICA); Advisory Board Member Australia Research Council art history research project led by the University of Melbourne and RMIT: Decentering Australian Art: Beyond the fixed canons of Australian Art; The Art Association of Australia and New Zealand (AAANZ); Centre Fellow at the Centre of Visual Arts, University of Melbourne.
